Change in Florida voting law is felt at polls

Changes in the state election law may have reduced the number of Florida voters who participated in early voting this year by an estimated 300,000 votes.

That reduction in early voting — from about 2.7 million voters in 2008 to 2.4 million this year — could have consequences in a tight race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in the nation’s largest swing state.

The total of votes cast indicate that more than half of the Floridians who will vote in this year’s presidential race will have done so before Election Day.

In 2008, Obama benefited from a surge in early voting, which accounted for more than 60 percent of the total 4.37 million votes that were cast before Election Day — either during a two-week early voting period or by absentee ballots.

But based on the latest estimate of 4.47 million pre-Election Day votes this year, the early voting will only account for 54 percent of those ballots, with the record — and growing — 2.06 million absentee ballots climbing to 46 percent of that vote, up from just under 40 percent in 2008.

The drop in the early voting will hit the Democrats harder because they accounted for 46 percent of the early votes to the Republicans’ 36 percent — or a 248,000-vote edge, based on party registration.

Independent analysts attribute the drop in early voting to the Republican-led Legislature’s decision last year to cut the early voting period from two weeks to eight days. The law gave counties the option of keeping their early-voting polls open up to 12 hours per day, although because of the added costs few counties opted for keeping the polls open for the same 96 hours that were available in 2008.

Daniel Smith, a political scientist at the University of Florida who tracks voting trends, said the result was that Florida counties offered both fewer days and hours of early voting this year — in some cases as low as 55 hours.

“It’s had a dampening effect, as many people predicted,” Smith said.

He also said the fewer days and hours of early voting led to the long lines and waiting times of six hours in some of the larger counties — which prompted a lawsuit from the Florida Democratic Party and led to a number of the state’s largest counties agreeing to expand their procedures for allowing voters to come to the local supervisor of elections’ offices to cast in-person absentee ballots.

In Sarasota County, voters were busy filing absentee ballots on Monday.

Throughout the day, a steady flow of people came to pick up and drop off absentee ballots, said Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent.

Among the crowd was Audrey Marten, who sells real estate. She decided to vote by absentee ballot to skip the long lines during early voting. But she also did not want to risk waiting for Election Day.

In such an emotionally charged election, Marten said she wanted her voice to be heard.

“It’s good to vote early,” the Sarasota resident said, as she stood in a line of 10. “It matters.”

Thomas Platé also did not want any hassles on Election Day.

“I didn’t want to catch any flack,” said Platé, 20, a first-time voter who was nervous about having a driver’s license with an outdated address. He is a native of Orlando but lives in Sarasota, studying biochemistry at New College of Florida.

Platé walked into the Terrace Building and dropped off his absentee ballot in less than a minute. It was painless, compared with the experience of some people who waited in lines for six hours at the Miami-Dade County polls.

“That’s not even a world I’m familiar with,” Platé said, as he compared his voting experience.

Republicans and independents cast more ballots this year before Election Day in both Sarasota and Manatee Counties compared with four years ago, while Democrats are doing slightly worse than 2008, according to the latest figures.

Democrats in both counties hit the polls for early voting this year in much lower numbers than four years ago, a decline that was largely offset by an increase in voting by mail, but not entirely.

Combined, the number of Democrats who voted early at the polls or cast absentee ballots by mail was down in both counties as of Monday compared with 2008.

Like Democrats, local Republicans and independents turned out in lower numbers for in-person early voting this year, but the declines from 2008 were not as sharp and were more than offset by a big vote-by-mail increase.

The total number of people who cast a ballot before Election Day was up slightly in both counties and should grow further as more absentee ballots trickle in today.

In anticipation of the shortened early-voting period, Florida Democrats emphasized getting more of their voters to use absentee, or mail-in, ballots, which has long been a strategic weapon for the Florida GOP.

That emphasis led to a boost in absentee votes this year, although the Republicans continue to hold a lead among those ballots — with 886,000 absentee ballots tallied so far to the Democrats’ 806,000.

Combined, the early votes and absentee ballots give the Democrats a 168,000-vote edge heading into Election Day — well short of the pre-election advantage they had in 2008, which has been estimated at around 280,000 votes or as high as 363,000.

Additionally, UF’s Smith said the Democrats’ success with the absentee ballots could be problematic because those ballots are more prone to rejection than in-person voting either in the early-voting period or on Election Day.

Smith and Michael Herron, a Dartmouth College government professor, studied the absentee ballots in Florida’s Aug. 14 primary and found that 1.8 percent of the ballots were nullified for various reasons.

The rejection rates for Democrats — 1.9 percent — and Republicans — 1.6 percent — were in line with the statewide rate.

But the rejection rates were much higher for some ethnic and demographic groups that generally favor the Democrats. For instance, the rate of rejection for voters under the age of 21 was three times greater than for voters over 65. The rates for African-American and Hispanic voters was 2.8 percent.

“It’s a risky strategy,” Smith said about the Democrats trying to replace the lower early voting numbers with absentee ballots.

In Sarasota County, 15,202 fewer people participated in early voting at the polls this year compared with 2008, but the number of people who had cast absentee ballots as of Monday increased by 16,334.

The switch from in-person early voting to absentee voting among Democrats was even more pronounced in Manatee County, where the number of people participating in early voting at the polls decreased by 3,851 compared with four years ago but the number of absentee ballots went up by 5,544 as of Monday.

Democrats accounted for 57 percent of the increase in absentee voting in Manatee County, compared with 17 percent for Republicans and 25 percent for independents.

Smith said another impact from Florida’s 2011 election law could hinder the Democrats’ efforts in the election.

He said provisions that ultimately were overturned by the courts imposed severe restrictions on third-party registration groups, limiting the Democrats’ ability to expand their base for the election.

“The League of Women Voters and other nonpartisan voter registration groups were on the sidelines for 11 months,” Smith said.

The result was the Republicans narrowed the registration gap for this election. In 2008, the Democrats had a registration edge of 657,775 voters, but it has dropped by 122,000 voters to a 536,000 advantage this year. The Democrats have a 40 percent to 36 percent registration edge this year, compared with 42-36 percent in 2008.

Meanwhile, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who oversees the state’s elections system, said Florida voters were turning out “in record numbers” during the pre-Election Day voting process.

He said he expects this year’s combined early voting and absentees — now at 4.47 million — to exceed the 4.5 million that were cast in 2008.

Detzner said he did not expect Florida to experience long waiting lines or other major problems on Election Day, noting that instead of the 300 early-voting polling places, Floridians will have access to 6,000 Election Day polls.

However, Smith and other observers note the 6,000 polling places are fewer than in 2008 and that voters will be dealing with an unusually long ballot that includes 11 state constitutional amendments.

“I’m anticipating that things will go smoothly, orderly,” Detzner said. But he said the state is “well prepared” to react if there are contested local, regional or statewide races.

He also said he was not making a turnout projection, although based on what the local supervisors of elections have told him, he anticipates a turnout in the range of 70 to 75 percent, which the state reached in 2008.

Detzner said he expects the pre-Election Day voting to exceed 50 percent of the total vote this year. Based on a 75 percent turnout of Florida’s 11.9 million voters, the state has already reached that mark.

This report includes material from staff writers Zac Anderson and Gabrielle Russon, as well as The News Service of Florida.

Lloyd Dunkelberger

Lloyd Dunkelberger is the Htpolitics.com Capital Bureau Chief.
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Last modified: November 5, 2012
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